politics, theory, action

December 17, 2015

We are Seneca Lake Red-lines Crestwood: no fossil fuel infrastructure

“With this red line laid down across Crestwood’s driveway, we declare that its plans to store fracked gases in abandoned salt caverns on Seneca Lake constitutes an emergency,” said Colleen Boland, who recently returned from the Paris climate talks. “We declare that these plans threaten our water, our children, and our climate.”

The red line motif emerged at the end of the Paris climate talks last Saturday, as 15,000 people marched in the streets of Paris. It signifies a commitment to holding society to the lines that cannot be crossed in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Eighty percent of fossil fuels must be left in the ground in order to curb climate change.

The red line motif also was prominent last weekend as 300 residents in Porter Ranch, CA demanded closure of the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. The Southern California Gas Co. field has spewed natural gas into the atmosphere since Oct. 23. It currently contributes a full one-quarter of California’s daily methane emissions. There have been hundreds of complaints from the surrounding community of headaches, nosebleeds, stomachaches, rashes, and respiratory illness from exposure to the gas and its additives. 1,000 families have evacuated. The company estimates it will take 3 months to plug the leak.

“Aliso Canyon is a clear warning to us of what can go wrong with underground gas storage,” said Tony Del Plato, 67, of Covert, “and how willing the companies are to ignore the plight of the communities around them, and the impact on the climate.”

Schuyler County deputies arrested the nine shortly before 10 a.m. as they blocked a Crestwood tanker truck from leaving the facility.

The nine protesters were transported to the Schuyler County Sheriff’s department, charged with disorderly conduct, and released. The total number of arrests in the civil disobedience campaign over the past year now stands at 441.

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i was just thinking about this...natural gas contracts are at $1.75 per mmBTU, the lowest ever on an inflation adjusted basis and the lowest ever for a January contract in 25 years of NYMEX trading...last week, NY city spot gas was at $1, and PA pipeline gas was at 48 cents...as you must have noticed, it's been warm, and no one is using much gas...there is real fear among industry insiders that if the warm weather continues, they'll run out of space to put what's being produced...so i'm betting they'll throw everything they got at opening those Seneca Lake salt caverns to store the surplus...

I've been wondering about that. For them, the storage is pretty cheap (the salt caverns are there and they are not planning on lining them). But they still have to put money into the infrastructure. With prices so low, isn't it possible that they will cut their losses?

output from PA & OH wells hasn't gone down much, if at all...i suppose theoretically they could shut them in, but right now most of the frackers need that cash flow just to pay interest on their debt...

on the other side of the coin, if they can store cheap gas until next winter, they'd be betting prices would higher then, and they'd be in a position to profit from the contango...

so i tend to think that this year is crunch time...if they dont get it this year, then they're likely to abandon the effort...